Amy’s car.
Twenty past three in the morning.
Jolie had waited so long to see that car, that when it finally showed up the whole thing felt like a dream. Jolie was slumped down below the dash of the Ram, her eyes following the play of headlights as they passed over her truck and moved on. She scooched up a little bit and looked through the telephoto in time to see the taillights blink out in front of Maddy Akers’s house.
Amy got out of the car and strode up to the front porch, standing under the light. She knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked harder. Still no answer. Then she started pounding. “Maddy? Maddy! I know you’re in there! Wake up!”
Jolie felt as if she were frozen in amber, still sleepy. An image bloomed in her mind’s eye—a ridiculous image—of Maddy answering the door and Amy pulling out a gun and popping her.
She stamped her feet—one foot had gone to sleep—and eased the Ram’s door open. The interior light stayed off; she’d turned the switch off last night.
Amy was pounding on the door and screaming. Lights came on in a house across the street.
Jolie slid out and touched her feet to the asphalt. Gently closed the door to the Ram.
“Maddy! You’d better come to the door! I mean it!”
Crouched low, Jolie crab-walked to the corner, using bushes and trees for concealment. The camera hanging from the strap looped around her neck, Jolie was glad for the telephoto lens. The plan was to take photos of the two of them out front, then tail Amy. Amy would be the one with the money.
The door opened and Maddy stepped outside. Jolie was concentrating so hard on getting a good shot, she didn’t hear the truck turn onto the street until it accelerated past her in a pall of blue smoke.
She would think afterward that it was like watching a movie. It happened that fast.
The truck slowed to a stop in front of Maddy’s house, idling rough. Both women turned to look. Jolie let the camera fall to her chest and reached for her weapon. There were two loud cracks. Maddy bent down as if to pick something up from the porch floor.
Jolie brought up her weapon. Shouted, “Police!”
Three more cracks, rapid succession. The shriek of tires. Both women down, pushed over like dominos.
Something whizzed past Jolie’s ear. She heard the crack, like firewood exploding. Was she hit?
Get into a shooting stance. Double-grip, slow it down,
She missed. Heart racing in overdrive. Ear stinging like a son of a bitch. Blood trickling down into her collar.
A light snapped on in the house across the street, a man in pajamas running outside. She couldn’t risk the shot. “Police!” she yelled. “Go inside! Go inside now! Call 911!”
The truck accelerated. The passenger banged the side of the truck, yelling, “Go-go-go-
Man in his pajamas, just staring at her, in the line of fire.
“Police! Inside,
The man backed toward the door. Still didn’t have a clear shot.
Accelerated in a funnel of dust.
Gone.
Jolie sprinted toward the Akers house. Both victims on the ground. They looked like discarded clothing under the porch light. She punched 911 into her cell. Identified herself as police, gave the code for officer needs assistance, and told them to send an ambulance.
Description?
A rifle?
The phone dangled from her hand. The next thing she knew, she was standing over Maddy Akers as if she’d been teleported there. Maddy appeared to be dead. Her neck and jaw had been taken out, one large clot, shiny black in the lamplight. Amy was dead too—shot to pieces.
Sirens.
The porch was slick with blood.
25 FRANKLIN
The former attorney general of the United States, Franklin Haddox, throttled back the twin Yanmar 480 HP diesels and piloted his boat,
Today was the one bright spot in an otherwise miserable week. He would finally meet his distant cousin, the author Nick Holloway, for the first time—just the lift he needed.
The vague worry that had plagued him since Memorial Day weekend had hardened into dread in the last couple of days. But he wouldn’t give in to it. He couldn’t. You needed a steady hand on the tiller in situations like this. Frank knew Mike, and even his own wife thought he was weak. Both of them confused weakness with caution.
In truth, Mike Cardamone was the loose cannon. He was the one who didn’t think things through. Maybe it was because he’d been in the CIA for so long. Mike thought like a spook. That incessant desire to snip every loose end, even if doing so could lead to a complete unraveling.
Frank didn’t want to think about it, but it kept digging its way into his thoughts. Where would Mike stop? For God’s sake, was he going to go after
The thought chilled him.
Frank was fairly certain Mike didn’t know about Riley and that crazy, hostage-taking asshole, Luke Perdue. Mike lived in DC. He hadn’t been down here in months. Still, he had an uncanny way of finding out things.
There had been no hint of anything like that in their phone conversations. Mike
Frank’s gut clenched. Mike was a spook at heart. He wouldn’t tip his hand. If he knew that Luke Perdue and Riley were sleeping together, he would have logically made another assumption: that Luke could have showed Riley the photos.
A couple of days ago, Frank had taken Riley out on the boat—just the two of them, on the pretext of a day out together. Riley’d acted like it was a big drag to go out with her dad, but Frank knew she was actually happy about it. That was the thing about Riley. Every emotion showed on her face.
He told her he knew about Luke. As always, she was defiant. “He was
Riley had a point there. Sometimes he and Grace seemed more like co-conspirators than man and wife. They spun scenarios, talked tactics well into the night, didn’t touch one another in public. But there was another side to their marriage.
“It was over, okay?” Riley said, her face stormy. “He broke up with me. And now he’s dead!
It was embarrassing. His daughter making a fool of herself over a pot-smoking loser. Frank managed to get the truth out of her: Luke told Riley he was going to get some pot from his truck, and then snuck off into the night. Probably couldn’t stand all the drama—Frank could relate to that.
